Sony’s been explaining the design story behind its new Xperia range at a UK briefing, how it’s trying to balance both the dematerialization of tech (touchscreens, gesture interfaces) and a design that’s both desirable and beautiful — and Sony’s certainly got the latter down on its new smartphone. The Xperia Z Ultra follows the lines of the rest of the Z-series. It has the same “OmniBalance” plane, uniform screen surface, but this time it measures in at 6.4 inches across, but still running at 1080p resolution. Yep, it does feel substantially bigger than the original Xperia Z — check out our comparison gallery, the new Ultra model dwarfs it. You’re looking at a screen width almost identical to a passport and that 6.5mm profile helped fit it into pockets. We managed to cram it into our trouser pockets without an issue. It’s certainly a bigger device than the likes of LG’s Optimus G Pro or Samsung’s Galaxy Note II and you’re going to have to test it out for yourself to see if you’d be willing to talk into this Xperia like phone — it’s going to catch the eye.

There’s also Qualcomm’s notable Snapdragon 800 powering the device on a relatively large 3,000mAh battery, while Sony’s simplified the design dropping a few of those much-maligned protective flaps, at least on the headphone socket. There’s more impressions and a hands-on video after the break!